Rush Limbaugh hits Mandela-Obama link

Rush Limbaugh on Friday slammed President Barack Obama for trying to do “everything and anything he can to link himself to” Nelson Mandela in the wake of the death of the anti-apartheid leader and former South African president.

Limbaugh told his listeners that the White House, along with the media, “is in on” making Mandela’s death all about Obama. Limbaugh pointed to the White House tweeting out a picture of Obama in Mandela’s prison cell on Robben Island and a CBS News report that stated Mandela kept a photograph of him with Obama in his office as proof Obama and the media are working together.

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Obama statment on Mandela death

“Now, forgive me, but if you are a low-information voter and you’re watching the CBS Evening News last night, you would come away with the impression that the important thing about Nelson Mandela’s death was that he had looked up Barack Obama when he came to town and had a picture of Obama when he died,” Limbaugh said, according to a transcript. “Classic, folks. Absolutely classic — and the rest of the media, it’s so predictable.”

If he had tweeted out a similar picture, the conservative radio host said, the reaction from the media would be headlines such as “Limbaugh attempting to capitalize and use the death of Nelson Mandela to promote himself! How unseemly!” And now, based off of his statements on the show, the talker predicted the media would be writing stories claiming “‘Limbaugh opened his show making the death of Mandela about Obama!’”

“No,” the radio host said. “Limbaugh opened his show reporting how Obama has made the death of Mandela about Obama.”

Limbaugh also pointed listeners to a New York Times story, “Obama’s Path was Shaped by Mandela’s Story,” and later to The Washington Post’s “Mandela’s Cause Shaped Obama’s Political Awakening” and POLITICO’s “Barack Obama and Nelson Mandela: Inspiration from afar,” as examples of the media working with the White House to make Mandela’s death about the president.

“Without Mandela there might not have been an Obama?” he said, referring to the New York Times piece. “I’ll tell you who’s putting this out there. It’s Obama doing everything and anything he can to link himself to Mandela, and the Clintons are the same thing. We got a nickname for him, The Funeral Crashers. I mean, they’ll show up anywhere where there’s a camera. This kind of stuff, the Drive-Bys, I’m telling you, they’re doing everything they can to make the news of Mandela’s death all about Obama.”